SAN DIEGO -- An ankle injury early in life can lead to significant problems later in life, including arthritis, 10News reported. Until now, an ankle replacement was not an option for middle-age people.

However, surgeons have perfected a treatment to help people get back on their feet.

For more than 20 years, Bill Hurst got by on a bad ankle.

"I couldn't put weight on it anymore. I couldn't walk," Hurst told 10News.

Hurst severely injured his ankle in a motorcycle accident when he was 17. It healed, but Hurst, 41, faces a new problem with his ankle.

"For 20 or 30 years of living and walking on that ankle, he developed arthritis. It just wore down," said Dr. William Bugbee, an orthopedic surgeon at University of California, San Diego.

The ankle is a very complex joint. It is difficult to repair, but doctors have perfected a procedure using transplanted donor tissue to rebuild the entire ankle.

Bugbee rebuilt Hurst's ankle using donor tissue called Allograft.

"We trim out the surfaces of the joint, the damaged cartilage and the underlying bone, leaving most of the ligaments and other tissues intact," Bugbee explained.

Eventually, the new graft is converted into new living bone or soft tissue.

Nearly three months following surgery, Hurst is seeing some big improvements.

"(My pain is) pretty much completely gone except for a little bit in the Achilles," Hurst said.

Bugbee said, "I think this is a real breakthrough for young people that are disabled by arthritis and really don't have an option of replacement or fusion."

It will take many more months of healing until Hurst can walk without crutches, but he says just having the pain disappear is "a little miracle."

Patients who undergo Allograft cartilage transplantation usually experience a 65 to 80 percent improvement in pain relief, function and range of motion.

For more information on cartilage transplant for ankles, call UCSD at (858) 657-8218.